# Talk Dim Sum — user reviews > 27 indexed App Store user reviews of Talk Dim Sum by Technicat, LLC, rated 4.80/5 from 345 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/talk-dim-sum/id953929066/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/talk-dim-sum/id953929066.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 293 · 4★ 38 · 3★ 10 · 2★ 3 · 1★ 1 ## What do users think of Talk Dim Sum? Overall sentiment: mixed **Pros** - 👍 Great for learning dim sum - 👍 Useful for ordering food - 👍 Helpful for non-native speakers - 👍 Good visuals and audio - 👍 Covers many dishes - 👍 App is actively maintained - 👍 Easy to use - 👍 Fantastic for self-studying - 👍 Exciting to find Mandarin option **Cons** - 🐛 App freezes on picture tap - 🐛 Speech sound not working - 🐛 Incorrect Cantonese pronunciation - 🐛 Wrong word usage - 🐛 Audio recordings are bad - 🐛 Language setting issue (Mandarin/Cantonese) - 🐛 Not enough dishes **Commonly reported bugs** - App freezes when tapping on food pictures - Speech function has no sound - Cantonese voice pronunciations are incorrect - Wrong word usage and pronunciation (Mandarin vs. Cantonese) - Audio recordings are laughably bad - All dishes displayed in Mandarin instead of Cantonese - Sound not working, even when highlighted **Most requested features** - Add Boba names and rituals - Add conversations for ordering - Add more Chinese food items - Add various teas ## Newest reviews (7 of 27) ### 4/5 — Awful recordings 😂😂 *2018-09-26* I came across this app while looking for messaging apps. Having grown up in Hong Kong, I downloaded the app largely for novelty. For westerners, it might work as a reference, although some kind do filtering mechanism might help. The reason I didn’t give it 5 stars though, and the real reason I reviewed the app was the laughably bad pronunciation. It’s not that it’s inaccurate - it just sounds like a cross between Jessica Rabbit and a 450 pound manatee. I played the sound and immediately my friend asked what sounded so 核突. Please do not play these in the restaurant. They will definitely 落地笑. **Developer response:** Hi, thanks for downloading the app! It is possible to filter the selections via the "search" menu at the top right of the screen, although it's not a fancy interface. And when you're looking at a specific dish, that menu lets you search by related tags. As for the sounds, they're actually not recorded, but rather automatically generated by iOS text to speech (I made this app when I was working in Hong Kong and trying to learn Cantonese and discovered iOS and OSX have Cantonese text-to-speech, which is what they use for Voiceover and on a Mac you can set in Settings and invoke with Option-ESC). By default, the speech in the Talk Dim Sum app plays at half speed to assist users who aren't used to Cantonese, so maybe that sounds weird, but you can change it in Settings (there's a shortcut in the top-left menu). Still, it might be a good idea at some point to have real recordings. It does seem to me the generated speech doesn't always sound right for the whole phrase since it's going word by word. ### 5/5 — Just what I’ve always wanted *2018-03-15* I’ve been enjoying dim sum for over 40 years, but the language barrier is still sometimes a problem. The pictures and sound in this app combine for a complete solution to getting the items I'm craving. Its simplicity and clarity are hard to beat. I'm also impressed by the responsiveness of the developer. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote pointing out that if you don't speak Chinese, it can be hard to get something other than a restaurant's default tea. I suggested that adding various teas to the app would be really helpful, and now he's already started doing it! When I began eating dim sum, it required a 90-minute bus and subway trip to Chinatown in lower Manhattan. Today, there's a big dim sum palace just four blocks from my home in Queens. The Talk Dim Sum app now has a permanent place on my iPad. **Developer response:** Thanks for the great review and the tea suggestion! ### 5/5 — Simple *2018-02-20* Thank you. It is nice app. **Developer response:** Thanks, glad you like it! ### 5/5 — Awesome app *2018-02-19* A great app to say Chinese dishes correctly **Developer response:** Thanks! In fact, I originally made this app to help me learn Cantonese. ### 5/5 — ITranslate Pro *2017-11-12, version 1.79* ITranslate Pro is the Best New Language Learning App Available. The App Helps you Learn How to Write, Read, Pronounce & Speak the Language of Choice. I highly recommend the App for Language Learners. The Learning of Pronouncing Words is Clever. Kind Regards, Edward Lee. ### 5/5 — Very helpful when ordering dim sum *2017-08-11* I don't speak Cantonese or Mandarin. I'm not Chinese, but I love dim sum. I don't even remember how I even came across this app, but it is the greatest. I can now easily order all my favorite dishes; before this app, I'd have to Google a description of what I wanted to order and hope the name would come up, or I look for a photo online (all of which took way too much time, especially when I was hungry). Luckily, this app has both the written name and pronunciation of the most common foods and, in most cases, I just show the waiter/waitress the written names of the foods and get what I want. **Developer response:** This is exactly how I envisioned the app to be used, so I'm glad it's working for you! Thanks for the review! ### 5/5 — Haha *2016-01-14* Does its job and covers the main dim sum, informing the basics! 😛 **Developer response:** I'm glad you find it useful! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Tapping on picture freezes appp *2025-10-26* It’s a nice app until you click on the food picture and app freezes. Can’t get back into app without deleting it and downloading again. A serious bug **Developer response:** Sorry, I don't get notifications so I just saw this. I encountered this in the app I'm currently working on also, left swipe on the fullscreen image (implemented with the fullscreencover feature in SwiftUI) gets stuck in iOS 26. I haven't been updating it since I made it free, but I'll take a look (the bigger problem is that the speech-to-text is broken in iOS 26). You don't need to delete the app to restart - swipe up from the bottom will show you the actively running apps and swiping up on each will kill the process so you can relaunch the app. ### 1/5 — Just wrong *2019-02-06, version 2.63* Lots of wrong Cantonese voice eg fish paste, mushroom, taro, curry, egg tart, shrimp, slices, Chinese broccoli, bun ### 2/5 — Speech doesn’t work *2022-09-12, version 4.8.8* When you tap the speaker, the characters turn red in sequence but there is no sound, so you can’t è actually hear how to pronounce. ### 2/5 — Wrong word and pronunciation *2019-02-05, version 2.62* Should be 雜菇，not 什菇 which is putonghua in Simplified Chinese, not Cantonese, ending up in not only wrong pronunciation but wrong use of word as well. ### 2/5 — Great App, if you don’t need to actually need to hear pronunciation... *2018-03-05* I wanted to give this app 5 stars, however the most important aspect in teaching a non-Chinese speaker, sound, is unavailable. I’ve been eating dim sum since I can remember. Naturally, I was stoked to find this app. My Mom is seasoned in pronunciation, so I was able to learn a few basics along with the English translation. Unfortunately, while the examples have sound bites, the sound is not working; you can see the app attempting at it though as it highlights your vocabulary word by phrase. I hope this assists in working out any bugs (iPhone 7 plus) because I really want to use this app-seems like it will be really helpful. **Developer response:** Thanks for the detailed report, it is useful to know the device you're using and that the Chinese characters are highlighting, indicating the iOS text-to-speech is actually happening. Occasionally I've seen the text-to-speech not work because of an apparent initial delay, or maybe touch-sensitive area of the button is too small. And it's possible network problems might impact the text-to-speech (it's definitely a factor in speech-to-text). However, usually it turns out I accidentally had the iPhone mute switch toggled (on the left side of the phone just above the volume buttons), which has happened several times, and since you see the characters highlighting as if they're being spoken, indicating the text-to-speech is actually taking place, my suggestion for now is to check that. And it's your discretion obviously, but you deducted three stars for that? There are a few other dim sum apps out there, and I think most of them don't have Cantonese text-to-speech, so that seems a bit of an overreaction to me, but nevertheless, I appreciate the review and detailed problem report, and I hope you still find the app useful! ### 2/5 — What happened to the sound? *2018-02-17* What happened to the sound? **Developer response:** The sound works for me. On which dish do you see the problem? One thing to watch out for is the hardware iPhone mute button (on the left side of the phone). Several times I've accidentally had that toggled and then wondered why I wasn't hearing any speech in the app. ### 3/5 — Dim Sum review *2021-02-08, version 3.79* I gave it a sub-par rating because not enough dishes ### 3/5 — Fix audio *2018-11-28* A lot of the audio is incorrect **Developer response:** Do you mean incorrect as in saying the wrong words when the correct Chinese word is displayed, or it's saying the word incorrectly because the incorrect word is displayed? I did just notice one dish (sweet rice cake) where the app is saying it correctly but the displayed Cantonese (Yale) pronunciation is incorrect, so that will be fixed in an update. If the displayed Chinese words and pronunciation are correct, then keep in mind: The speech is not recorded, it's generated by the iOS built-in text-to-speech system, so the app is feeding the Chinese characters into the system and specifying that it should say them in either Cantonese or Mandarin. So it may not sound as natural as entire recorded phrases. Also note the default language is Cantonese, not Mandarin. You can change the default in the Settings, either from the top-left menu of the app, or go to the Settings app and look for Talk Dim Sum. The next update will let you switch between Cantonese and Mandarin on the fly, although the default will still be set in Settings. Keep in mind the pronunciation by default is at half speed for learning purposes, but double-tapping the speaker icon plays it faster. You can adjust the default speed in Settings, also. ### 4/5 — Sound doesn’t work *2021-07-06, version 4.0.4* Is it suppose to have no sound unless you upgrade? ### 4/5 — It looks tasty but is that all? *2019-07-29* Really..?! I know it’s just a 4 star ✋ **Developer response:** Four stars? I'll take it! ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Love this app, but… *2022-12-24* This is a great app and I’ve been able to share the names of some favorite dishes with my son. But just today when we opened the app, we were quite upset to find that all the dishes are now in mandarin instead of Cantonese. What happened? I checked the option for Cantonese instead of Mandarin and it’s all still in Mandarin. Please fix. Thank you! **Developer response:** Update: another user figured out this happens if the voice setting for Chinese is not Siri. I was able to reproduce this behavior and the workaround. “Since the app uses iOS's text-to-speech, I looked into Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > Voices > Chinese. I think the problem happens if the user chooses any voice that isn't a "Siri" voice. So, for example, if "Tingting" was selected, I only hear Mandarin in the app. If I select "Sinji", I only hear Cantonese in the app. When I select any of the "Siri" voices, I can hear both Mandarin and Cantonese in the app.” ### 5/5 — Totally awesome app *2022-05-06* My husband is from Macau in Speak Cantonese. I’ve been self studying Cantonese for almost 30 years. I was always frustrated when going to the restaurants because the dishes don’t seem like anything from regular Cantonese. So this app is so fantastic. I downloaded this app several years ago when it only had something like 20 or 30 dim sum dishes. About three months ago I went back to the app and was shocked to see it has so many more dishes included. I have memorized all of the dishes in the entire app for Cantonese. I also study Mandarin on the side. And was wishing that this app had also Mandarin. Today I was thinking I bet you it has Mandarin somewhere. And I just found out how to turn it on. I was extremely excited. Love this app and it’s perfect for anybody studying Mandarin or Cantonese and wants toBe able to read the menu in the Chinese restaurant **Developer response:** Thanks for the nice review! This app is kind of like a language app disguised as a food app, I made it primarily to learn Cantonese (so I could order food in Hong Kong), but enough people find it useful I feel compelled to keep adding to it. Besides the additional dishes, a lot of the features are user requests too, like the Mandarin support you mention (and then I had to add simplified characters to be complete), the search feature, favorites...so just let me know if you have more ideas! ### 5/5 — so awesome dim sum :) *2021-02-19* Thank you, so much for creating this app. I can speak Cantonese, however i don’t know how to read a lot of Chinese so the only dim sum names I know are some basic ones! Addition, my kids will love this! This will allow them to learn to order for themselves. If possible add some Boba names :)and the complicated ice and sugar Ritual. **Developer response:** Boba is a good idea! Thanks for the review! ### 5/5 — Made to order *2021-02-12* This is one of the best applications on my phone. As a 3rd generation Chinese American, it is a little embarrassing not to be able ask for my favorite items by name. This app has changed all of that. My biggest problem is that the servers now assume I’m a native speaker and start to converse with me in Cantonese about other things. I’m suddenly toast. LOL **Developer response:** Thanks for the great review! I have the same problem, if I manage to say something in Cantonese correctly, I get a whole dialogue in return! ### 5/5 — Phrases *2020-06-07* Can you add conversations on how to actually order something ? Like Yat lung haa cao. Leong tip cheong fun. Yap pei Cha, Fogei lip jau (to put this on a bag),and finally Maai taan. **Developer response:** Great idea! Definitely, I had a long-term idea that on each dish screen you could bring up the phrase on how to order it. In the meantime, I'm slowly (very slowly) adding to the phrases screen, but I'll keep working on it! ### 5/5 — THEY THOUGHT OF EVERYTHING *2020-04-18* I haven’t been this surprised by such a useful app in ages! I’d recommend it to anyone who likes Dimsum! **Developer response:** Thanks, I hope everyone who likes dim sum will try the app, and also anyone who would like to learn about dim sum! ### 5/5 — Love it!! *2019-03-13* I am ABC!! My husband is white. Very good app for him to learn all the dim sum names!! I cannot wait to see more Chinese food added. **Developer response:** Thanks! I’m visiting California right now and trying out a lot of dim sum places, so I’ll have some new dishes in the next update. Stay tuned! ### 5/5 — Lovingly maintained *2019-01-04* I became interested in dim sum before a trip to San Francisco. I wanted to try it but didn’t know the names of any dishes or what each was made of. I have severe dietary restrictions, so I can’t just take a chance on whatever looks good. The photos on the app are so inviting - so many things look delicious. The app served me well for a trip to Hong Kong a few months later. There are new updates constantly, giving the impression that is made by someone who really loves working on this app and adding to it all the time. Highly recommended! **Developer response:** Thanks for the great review! I do enjoy working on this app, but it's really the satisfied users like you who motivate me to keep it updated! ### 5/5 — Great app! *2018-09-08, version 2.26* It’s great to be able to use this when we take friends for Dim Sum. Thank you so much to whoever created it. 😀 ### 5/5 — My favorite underrated food app *2018-07-11* This application is extremely useful by exploring the various Dim Sum within visuals and audio. If you’re a foodie you have to try this! **Developer response:** Thanks, great to hear this is a foodie favorite! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-03.*